I’ve never written much about food, but I came across an interesting post by Evita Ochel that I had to comment on. The post is called Going Behind the Scenes of the Food We Are Told to Eat By The News Media.

We hear about all kinds of foods that the media says we should eat. We’re told to eat salmon for the omega-3 fatty acids. We’re told to drink red wine for the resveratrol. We’re told to drink milk for the calcium. We’re even told to eat chocolate for the antioxidants.

We hear about a magical substance, and think that it’s the key to good health. So anything that contains it must be a miracle food. Red wine contains resveratrol, so it must give you immunity from cancer. Never mind all the alcohol. I suppose paint thinner or gasoline or rattlesnake venom would be nutritious too, if they added resveratrol.

Evita clears up some misconceptions about these foods. My favorite part: to get enough resveratrol from red wine, you’d need to drink 1,000 bottles a day. Bottoms up!

Why do we go nuts over every potential miracle food? I think it comes down to seeking an easy solution. If we can isolate the one chemical we really need, we can put good health in a pill.

So when one thing turns out not to be a magical substance, we go looking for the next one. Soy, beta-carotene, vitamin C…surely there must be one simple thing we can take for perfect health without restricting our diet in any way, or doing any of that damn exercise. What kind of a cruel world do we live in where effort is required?

But no, there’s no ambrosia that will make up for all the crap you eat and all the healthy food you don’t. It will take effort.

Evita points out that instead of eating junk because it contains trace elements of a good thing, we can just get that good thing from its source. Instead of eating salmon laced with mercury, pesticides, and antibiotics, we can simply eat the plants that the salmon get their omega-3 from. And instead of becoming winos in the name of good health, we can just eat red grapes.

Many years ago, I was at a wedding and deciding what to drink. I said “I like white wine much better, but everyone says red wine is good for you.” My friend replied, “Well, it’s not like people train for marathons by drinking red wine.”